*Holy Lieutenant Talaris has been slain by the Ravenlight Party*
*You have personally dealt the killing blow to Holy Lieutenant Talaris*
Deacon barely had time to smirk at the System Notification that popped out in front of him when two things occurred: another System Notification and a horrific screeching.
*Undead Lieutenant Boris has been slain by the Hunters of Yharn Party*
A thunderous crack split the battlefield as something massive tore through the air from behind where Jass stood, causing Deacon and everyone else's heads from the Ravenlight Party to whip around, and widen their eyes just in time to catch sight of it – a ballista bolt the size of a building hurtling towards them at speeds that they barely could keep up with.
"Run!" Deacon shouted the instant his brain registered the massive object hurtling toward them. He seized Bonehead by the robes and pivoted into a sprint as Echoform Reliquary shifted into its Broadsword from, while Jass grabbed Sam and Esmerelda, dragging them with her. But before either Deacon or Jass could cover ten meters, the ballista struck, deafeningly.
It slammed into the ground near their feet, and the sheer force of the impact blasted mud, blood, and corpses into the air.
Then came the shockwave that hit everyone within a kilometer radius of the ballista bolt, not a breath later.
Deacon's world spun as both his body and Bonehead's were hurtling through the air like ragdolls. He could barely crack his eyes open as everything around him became blurs, but with what he could see; everything and everyone around him in a 50 meter radius had been blasted into the air and were now airborne.
"Fuck!" Bonehead shouted as his brain finally caught up to what was happening.
"Fu-!" was all Deacon heard Bonehead shout seconds before a large chunk of rock struck him in the back of his head, turning all he could hear into static as a second deafening boom of a ballista's arrival resounded from just a couple of hundred meters away from him and blasting both he and Bonehead further away from the rest of the Party.
Deacon hit the ground hard, tumbling through slick mud and corpses galore before slamming into the remains of what used to be a small wagon. Through the ringing in his ears and the aching pain on the back of his head, he could just barely hear through the screams and sobs of everyone around, but by as though some miraculous intervention by the System ,he was able to hear Jass's voice shouting something—but she was far, too far from him to pick up what she was saying
Shakily pushing himself up and squinting to where he spottily heard her voice, he spotted her, Sam, and Esmerelda huddled together on the opposite end of the battlefield, scrambling to their feet. Turning to his right, where Bonehead should be, considering he was still holding onto his robes, he found the corpse of a soldier whose spine had become a V, staring at him with wide-open eyes.
Bonehead! Deacon thought in panic as he turned to his right, clenched fist to find a torn piece of Bonehead's robe, while his left now held Echoform Reliquary's broadsword's hilt.
Panic thrummed in Deacon's heart as he scoured the chaotic battlefield for his missing friend, causing him to entirely ignore the pain that ached across the back of his head and the red, hot liquid pouring down it.
Hundreds of voices and noises rushed through his ears as he sprinted to every skeletal body wearing a dark robe in a thirty-meter radius around him, searching for the inky splotch that Bonehead had on the back of his skull.
However, as Deacon was searching for Bonehead, he felt dread fill his mind as he caught the sight of glinting metal far off into the distance on a hill that the Holy Human Kingdom had taken over.
Over the ridge of said hill were rows upon rows of archers who were reaching into the quivers behind their backs.
Deacon then quickly found himself swiveling on his heel as he heard the familiar sound of shattered glass, sizzling acid, and screaming echo from his one o'clock; in the middle of where soldiers and knights from both sides began clashing with one another yet again after being knocked away by the ballista bolt.
Without a single thought going through his mind other than, I need to reach Bonehead, Deacon's body blurred into motion as he cast Flame Armament atop his Broadsword's blade.
As Deacon's legs carried him further, as his muscles screamed in pain and ache, he tore himself a path to his friend, uncaring if it were foe or ally in his way.
His flame-wreathed blade carved horizontally straight through a ghoul knight's chestplate as the man still had both hands raised above his head with a sword in hand, seconds before he was about to bring it down and carve the human beneath him in two.
A half-pike punctured through the back of his shoulder as he zig-zagged past a gap in between the armies, wherein a cadet stood, and he made no move to pull it out as it stuck. Instead, he shoved past the pain and drove a shield he'd picked up off the ground into the face of a soldier in his path. The impact of the metal side caved in the soldier's bones and splattered the lower half of the shield with blood spraying from their nose just before they collapsed to the ground.
"Bonehead!" Deacon roared, voice breaking, his throat raw from the earlier whistle.
The hundreds of archers overlooking Ridgewood Hill raised their bows to the air and drew back their arrows – awaiting the command of their battalion commander to fire.
More soldiers surged in to block him, but he cut through them like a storm given flesh and flame as every strike of his blade sent arcs of flame that seared through any flesh that happened to come into contact with it.
One soldier's blade tangled against his own, bringing the both of them into a dead lock and forcing Deacon to twist his grip as Echoform Reliquary shifted into its dual short-sword form. Breaking free, he slammed his forehead into the man's nose with a crack of bone, then drove his left short sword into the man's gut before spinning on his heel, and spearing his right short sword into the stomach of another soldier who lunged for his neck, then kicked the corpse free from his blade.
"Company One and Two, Fire!" shouted the battalion commander as she let loose her own arrow into the sky. Following the order, the sound of a thousand bowstrings snapping at once filled the air, followed by the whistling storm of death descending.
Every step he took brought him closer to Bonehead, who he could now see wielding his dual daggers and holding his ground against two knights who were covered in acidic burns.
Hearing the whistle of arrows overhead and watching a third knight crash his mace into Bonehead's chest, sending him sprawling into the mud, Deacon let out a roar of anger, fear, guilt, and rage.
He abandoned any semblance of reason or control as his Innate Skill, Undying Flame, surged to life. In tandem with his outburst, streams of energy, unfamiliar yet somehow achingly familiar, flooded his limbs, filling him with so much raw power it felt as if he'd downed a thousand energy drinks at once.
Tufts of flame left his mouth seconds before an enormous burst of flame erupted from him, blasting everyone around him back and melting through their armor and decorating their flesh in fourth-degree burns.
Deacon became a blur of light as he charged through those in front of him, uncaring of the weapons in his way, nor of the ones that pierced his armor and tore into his flesh.
Instead, he instinctively used the energy that was bleeding into his body to grab hold of the blood that was leaking from his flesh to merge with the flames of Flame Armament and tinge the flames crimson red.
Just as the instinctive ability to use the energy within him had come to him, so too did the words that rose unbidden as he cast a spell that began to engrave itself across his soul —Ignis Sanguinem: BloodFlame Armament.
Then, with a swipe of his dual blades that were now burning flames of his own blood, the ten knights that remained in his way were cleaved diagonally through, with the halves of their bodies seared shut.
With nothing left hindering his vision of seeing Bonehead, Deacon now saw the three knights raise their weapons into the air and began wreathing them with holy mana, and Bonehead, who was sprawled atop the mud with visibly cracked bones, was now staring at him.
Kicking off the now hardened mud, in the eyes of the knights who were still wreathing their blades with holy mana, Deacon teleported in front of them, and a brief prick of a needle touched them before an arcing eruption of flame covered their vision.
Without wasting a second, Deacon cut off his Innate Skill, Undying Flame, and let Ignis Sanguinis: BloodFlame Armament fade. Spinning on his heel, he flung Echoform Reliquary to the ground and snatched up the fallen gold-and-white tower shield lying beside Bonehead's crumpled form.
Deacon slammed the shield down over them, boots sinking into the mud as he locked his stance. The gold-and-white tower shield flared with mana, a crude effort on his part in an attempt to strengthen the durability of the shield, and if he was honest, it was barely worth the cost of the mana he poured into it, but it was all he knew to bolster its defense as he braced against the storm of arrows raining down.
The first arrows slammed into the shield like a storm, rapid and relentlessly, as the sheer force and power behind them pushed Deacon's feet deeper into the hardened mud with every barrage.
"Company Three, Four, and Five," the battalion commander shouted. "Fire!"
The gold-and-white tower rattled in his grip as holy-tipped ironheads pierced its surface, some skittering off, others punching through with brutal force, despite the inherent holy mana that inhibited the tower shield.
Deacon gritted his teeth as pain lanced through his right arm, and it wasn't the pain of his skin searing from the holy mana that emanated from the tower shield as a result of the Bandana of the Undead wrapped tightly around his forehead.
Two arrows tore clean through the shield: one buried itself in his upper right pec, the other tore into his forearm. A third struck lower, sinking deep into his left shoulder, hot blood streaming as he snarled through clenched teeth.
Still, he held the shield firm, crouched low over Bonehead, bracing against the hail of steel that rained down like… ironically enough, divine judgment.
"N-Not only are ya late," Bonehead tilted his skull, to stare at Deacon's back and rasped, "You… look like shit."
Deacon barked out a laugh, blood dripping from his chin as another arrow thudded into the shield inches from his face. "Yeah… I can say the same to you."
The both of them chuckled despite the seemingly endless barrage of arrows raining down atop them and covered in enough wounds that would make a healer lose their sanity.
But eventually the dings of metal raining atop the shield came to a stop, and the battlefield fell into an eerie, ringing silence.
Bonehead, pushing himself upright, pushed a Health Potion into Deacon's grip. "Drink it, dipshit," he rasped out before taking out a darker Health Potion and downing it.
Deacon didn't hesitate as he grabbed the potion with his left hand, tore off the cork, and drained the Health Potion in one swift gulp.
Without pause, he shoved the gold-and-white tower shield into the mud, gritted his teeth, and wrenched the shafts of the arrows from his shoulder, forearm, and chest.
Once Deacon had pulled out the last arrow and Bonehead rolled onto his feet beside him and pulled out the pike that was still impaled into his back, he said. "You ready to keep this clusterfuck going?"
"Do you even have to ask?" Deacon asked as he gave him a bloodied grin.